Friday, June 26, 2009

When Bill Clinton was president, back in 1999 in the last century, the USA led its NATO allies into a humanitarian war, a war for human rights, for all things good, for yellow and pink flowers and for peanut butter. This was in Kossovo, a region of Serbia in the Middle Ages until the Ottoman conquest. The Serbs and Albanians were allies against the Ottoman invaders, including in the battle of Kossovo Polye. This battle, which took place exactly 620 years ago [15-28 June 1389] was an Ottoman victory. Afterwards, whereas most Albanians eventually converted to Islam, most Serbs did not. In subsequent centuries Albanians as Muslims harassed and exploited Serbs. Albanians also eventually became the majority population in what is now Kossovo. Serbia claims it as a Serbian province from which most of the Serbian population has been driven out in the last 35 years, whereas Albania and the Kossovo Albanians declared an independent Kossovo in 2008. The declaration of independence was promoted by US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, and several NATO member states, but has not been recognized by many countries.

In contrast to the immense international handwringing over Palestinian Arab refugees, the hundreds of thousands of Serbs driven out of Kossovo since the mid-1970s, especially since the NATO victory over the Serbs in 1999, are seldom accorded more than a bored yawn by the international press/media and "human rights" and "humanitarian" organizations. The Kossovo Serbian refugees may be added to the hundreds of thousands of Serbs driven out of Croatia and Bosnia while the world media was full of heartfelt moralistic outcries against "ethnic cleansing." Shall we have a large serving of hypocrisy, anyone?

The world should not stay silent about Kosovo's missingBy Fron Nahzi and Chuck Sudetic Commentary Wednesday, June 24, 2009Listen to the Article - Powered by

The world should not stay silent about Kosovo's missing Hundreds of people disappeared 10 years ago in Kosovo, the former Serbian province that is now the world's newest state. These are not missing persons like the Albanians whom Serbian police executed and buried in secret graves during the Kosovo conflict of 1999. These missing persons disappeared after the conflict, on NATO's and the United Nations' watch. Most were Serb civilians. Relatives of most of these people have reported that they were abducted.

Kosovo, to a significant degree, owes its independence to a NATO military intervention undertaken in the name of human rights. And in the name of human rights, it is time for the truth to come out about the people who went missing after the conflict, and about why, for a decade, United Nations officials have ignored appeals by the victims' families and have launched no criminal investigation.

Kosovo's Albanian authorities have for years made no significant decision without receiving the imprimatur of the European Union and, especially, the United States. The EU and the US should urge the Kosovo government to mount a credible investigation, for the sake of the victims and people in Kosovo who want their state to be ruled by law.

In 1999, the US led NATO into war against Slobodan Milosevic's Serbia to end gross violations of the rights of Kosovo's majority Albanians. Serb nationalists had quashed Kosovo's autonomy. Serb troops beat, killed, and jailed Albanians, whose leaders, following cues from Western embassies, urged nonviolence.

After the rise of an Albanian insurgency, the Kosovo Liberation Army (UCK), Milosevic launched a violent, all-out campaign to expel Kosovo's Albanians. Villages were burned. Serbian police forces killed Albanian civilians and cast out hundreds of thousands from their homes. (The authorities in Belgrade have yet to come clean on the Albanians civilians executed and buried on police and military bases in Serbia.)

NATO forced Serb forces to withdraw in June 1999, and international peacekeepers, under NATO's leadership, occupied Kosovo. The UN sent a mission to help establish local institutions. The US and West European countries began shepherding Kosovo's new Albanian authorities toward statehood. Last year, Kosovo gained independence. Sixty countries, including the US and most EU states have recognized it.

According to a recent BBC news investigation, however, UCK members abducted Serbs, Albanians, Roma, and others after NATO's arrival. UN missing-persons researchers - not criminal investigators - searched for them for years and found no trace of them in Kosovo. They did, however, find Albanian witnesses who asserted that UCK members took captured Serbs, Albanians, and Roma into Albania, where they were killed.

Now the BBC has broadcast interviews with Albanians who were imprisoned in secret UCK camps in Albania. These witnesses confirmed that the camps also held Serbs, Roma, and others. The BBC located graves of some of the missing in Albania. There have been leaks of UN documents citing Albanian sources who name people involved.

From June 1999, the UN and NATO contingents in Kosovo clearly calculated that stability trumped justice. Despite the urging of staff members, leaders of these missions avoided launching criminal investigations into the missing. Some UCK leaders, lionized by the local Albanian population as the victors of 1999, are now running Kosovo's government. Their blanket denials are no longer credible. [Daily Star, Beirut, 24 June 2009]

Chuck Sudetic, one of the authors of this article, was also a coauthor of a book by Carla del Ponte, the Italian former chief prosecutor of the Hague Tribunal for crimes in the former Yugoslavia.In any case, Chucky's hands are not all that clean either. But while we're talking about Yugoslavia, about Serbia and Kossovo, let's not forget that the present secretary of state, Hilary Clinton, was close to the decision-maker --Prez Bill Clinton-- who decided to make war on Serbia in 1999 in the name of "human rights." The American public and the Western public generally know little about what was really happening in Yugoslavia in those terrible years, which have not fully ended as the Serbs in the town Kosovska Mitrovica are still under siege. But unlike the 1/4 siege of Gaza by Israel, the siege of Kosovska Mitrovica elicits little, if any, international humanitarian outrage. In case anyone was unaware, Bill Clinton developed a second career after leaving the White House. He makes speeches and gives lectures, especially for the rich Arabs in the Persian Gulf states. There are some good bucks to be made in the lecture racket.

UPDATING 1-1-2011 More about the top man in Albanian-run Kosovo trading in Serbs' body parts [here]. Hashim Thaci is the prime minister of Kossovo, which declared unilateral independence from Serbia with the sponsorship of Condloleezza Rice and the US State Dept. He is also a major trader in the body parts racket. Welcome to the 21st Century!

2 Comments:

At the time I was too busy with work and family to realize what was going on, but when I saw "Wag The Dog" I began to wonder, and when I read this piece I began to feel sick at the thought of the evil America was perpetrating.

An Islamic Kosovo is Klinton's bastard offspring, and I hope history never forgets.

About

The world swims in lies. Who doesn't know that? Even the dupes are told there are lies about. We aim to dispel the fog of lies, especially about Israel, like our prophets of old and our poets like Yehudah haLevi.
We feature historic sources, documents, excerpts from the classics, etc.
How shall I render my vows and my bonds, While yet
Zion lieth beneath the fetter of Edom, and I in Arab chains?
The false prophets cry Peace, and there is no peace.
A new post every 2 or 3 days.

About Me

צלום דבורה בת יהודה לייב ז''ל
Dvoyreh bas Yehudah Leyb, Eliyahu's mother. My own photo will have to await more peaceful times.
I have been an observer of
the human comedy, and the human tragedy for many years.